


20, 200, and 2

by Apikale



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, F/F, F/M, Family, Fpreg, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Loss of a Brother, M/M, Mpreg, Plotbunnies, loss of a child
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-25
Updated: 2018-07-23
Packaged: 2019-05-28 04:19:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15040577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Apikale/pseuds/Apikale
Summary: When Mako loses his brother, his best friend, and his only child in one fateful night, he and his husband are devastated.  But then Wu reveals the last glimmer of hope--not just for a couple without their daughter, but for a world without its Avatar.





	1. 20

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't read the comics. This may or may not be canon-compliant as far as they're concerned. Either way, hope you like it! If I feel like it, I *might* end up writing a prequel that elaborates on this chapter a little more, but for now, I'm just gonna try to write this.

Nightfall in the desert brought a drastic drop in temperature, but Mako’s skin sizzled as he ran further and further into the black, away from the opulence of the Misty Palms Oasis and the “summer” home that he and Wu now spent more time in than they did their real house.

Had he gone half a mile?  Ten miles?  It would be impossible to tell, even if he had the faintest idea how long he’d been gone.  At nearly fifty years of age, he certainly wasn’t as fast a runner as he was growing up on the streets of Republic City, but now he was fueled by a rage the likes of which he hadn’t known since his parents were murdered.

No, even that anger couldn’t compare.

Avatar Korra.

Bolin.

Xing Yan.

All of them gone, never to be seen again, claimed by the earth itself.  Mako laughed bitterly at the irony.  Earth was Xing Yan’s element, through and through.

He’d known that as long as he’d known her.

* * *

 

_20 years ago_

“Katara’s here!”  Sheer hope radiated from Opal’s face as she leaned out the window and watched a sky bison move in for landing on Air Temple Island, a distant patch of blue revealing the rider to be from the Southern Water Tribe.

Everyone had gathered in Bolin and Opal’s room in anticipation.  Asami was snuggled against Korra under a crocheted blanket on one end of the bed while Wu and Mako, the newlyweds, occupied the other.  Opal should have rested in the middle, according to Bolin, but like her husband, she was so anxious that she paced the room instead.  Even Varrick and Zhu Li had been invited, or else invited themselves (it wasn’t quite clear), and sat cross-legged on pillows on the floor.  But, in all fairness, they too had played a role in making this possible.

Bolin wrung his hands a little bit.  “Here it is… the moment of truth…”

Mako clapped his hand supportively over his brother’s shoulder.  “You got this, man.  I’m sure it worked.”

Korra and Asami nodded assent as Korra placed her arm protectively around Asami’s shoulder, drawing her closer.  “If a little canoodling at the Shrine of Arva during a hurricane doesn’t do the trick, nothing will!”

Mako rubbed his temple with the hand that wasn’t clutching Wu’s.  Korra could be so insensitive at times.  Well, so could Wu, but Wu had shown remarkable improvement ever since Mako had taken the time to notice.  Or maybe he was just biased because Korra was an old flame and Wu was the love of his life.

No, Wu was objectively better.

Mako scooped his husband up into his lap and cradled him like he did when he was his bodyguard.

Opal swallowed, suddenly less confident.  “Nothing will…” she echoed.

“I didn’t mean it like that!” Korra explained hurriedly.  “I just meant… we really stacked the odds in your favor!”

Opal smiled wryly.  “Odds that we needed very badly.”

It was true, too.  Opal and Bolin had been married for six years now, and had spent the last five years trying unsuccessfully for something they both wanted so badly: a family of their own.  They’d tried everything from cutting-edge pharmaceuticals to folk remedies to water healing, all to no avail.  Finally, after learning from Jinora that she and Kai had conceived almost immediately after their wedding, Opal had broken down in front of the couple, tearfully explaining their plight.  This prompted Jinora to inform Opal of the shrine to Arva, the fertility spirit the Air Nomads had revered for millennia.  Second only to Raava and Vaatu in terms of sheer creative power, Arva was known for fashioning new human spirits to replace the ones that, instead of reincarnating, had opted to retire to the spirit world.

And just as she was fond of creating human spirits, so was she determined to form human bodies to host them.

Of course, the ritual to summon her to her shrine was complicated, requiring at least eight people present, at least two of whom must be airbenders, each of whom must be accompanied by a lover.  Naturally, that meant inviting Korra and Asami.  Furthermore, just as firebenders grew stronger when comets ruled the sky and waterbenders were most powerful at the full moon, so were airbenders at their peak during hurricanes, which led Opal to theorize that their chances of success would be highest if they performed the ritual during a storm, as Air Nomads had traditionally done centuries ago; this in turn meant they needed a highly skilled aviator with a highly resilient plane in order to reach the shrine at the ideal time, and Varrick and Zhu Li fit the bill.

That left Mako and Wu, the ones who in no way had to be there, but were honored when Bolin requested that they fill the remaining two slots.  It had been slightly awkward participating in a fertility rite with his brother, two of his ex-girlfriends, and a man who had occasionally been his enemy, but at least the shrine had plenty of secluded rooms for the more intimate festivities.  Mako had wondered if the fact that two of the four couples present were gay could somehow render the whole thing ineffective, but either this thought didn’t cross Opal’s mind, or, more likely, she had done enough research on the shrine to verify that the setup would still work.

All that had been a month and a half ago.  Now, finally, Opal appeared to be showing signs of pregnancy, just in time for Katara’s arrival on the island.  Alas, there was also some bug going around, so her nausea might just be a symptom of the flu that Asami, Zhu Li, and hell, even Mako were still trying to kick, but either way, a visit from a healer was in order.

Footsteps sounded out in the hallway, and then Katara was at the door, her face brilliant with a knowing smile.

“Master Tenzin tells me you might have good news,” she practically sang as she rounded on Opal.

“We… we might.  That’s what we were hoping you could tell us,” Opal said, a nervous, eager edge to her voice.

“Then let’s get to it!”  Katara’s flask opened as she withdrew its contents.  Her hands hovered over Opal’s abdomen as the liquid emitted that slight glow it did whenever it was in the palms of a skilled healer.

After an incredibly long five seconds, Katara backed away, and from the way her smile only intensified, the verdict was delivered without a word being uttered.

“Thank you, thank you!” Opal cried as she threw her arms around Katara.  She turned to Bolin, who scooped her up in his arms and squeezed her close to his chest, both bawling tears of happiness.

Cheers and whistles reverberated across the room, and Mako felt as though he could firebend with his heart from the sheer joy that kindled inside of his chest.  Any time he saw his brother happy made for a good day, and this very well might be the best day of Bolin’s life.

“It’ll be an airbender, you know,” Katara said when the excitement died down just a hair.

“How can you be so sure?” Opal asked.  “I mean, sure, I’m an airbender, but Bolin and I are both Earth Kingdom.”

“Yes, but believe me… young airbenders give off a certain aura we healers pick up on.  All benders do, really, but I recognize this one from each of Pema’s pregnancies, and from Kai and Jinora’s little one.  I even felt it within myself during the whole time I carried Tenzin.  You’re carrying an airbender, I’m sure of it.”

“An airbender…” Opal repeated dreamily.  “Our little baby airbender…”

Bolin nodded and sniffed.

“Yes yes, that is all well and good,” Varrick piped up.  He’d been uncharacteristically quiet this whole time, to the point that Mako had nearly forgotten he was in the room.  “Well and good, but you see, if Zhu Li and I may request—”

Of course.  Mako hadn’t really even thought about it, since he wasn’t as close to Varrick as Bolin was, but as the other heterosexual couple present at the shrine, what had worked for Bolin and Opal had more likely than not been equally effective for Varrick and Zhu Li.  The hush that fell across the room suggested that this thought hadn’t occurred to Bolin, Opal, Asami, Wu, or Korra either.

Katara laughed.  “Naturally, so long as I’m here.”  That same water graced Zhu Li as she stood up, a smile tugging at the corner of her normally stoic lips, suggesting that this outcome was not only anticipated but hoped for.

“You too… and it’s a waterbender,” Katara finally declared.  “Living at the South Pole, I’ve seen enough waterbending children to know them just as well.”

Varrick punched the air victoriously.  “Magnificent!”  He planted a kiss on Zhu Li’s cheek.  “An heir to Global Industries at last!  And a waterbender, too!  Zhu Li… this kid will learn from the best how to do _all_ the things!”

“Hey… congratulations.”  Bolin took a momentary break from his own exuberance to high-five Varrick.

“I’m so happy for all of you.”  Asami moved to stand up, but Korra gently motioned for her to stay put.

“Hey, I’m happy for everyone too, and I’d hate to rain on anyone’s parade, but I was actually wondering if you could heal Asami too while you’re here, Katara?  My healing isn’t as effective as yours, and she’s been a little under the weather.”

Asami blushed a little.

“Why of course, it would be easy,” Katara said.  “Why don’t you lie down while I work?”

Asami complied, and Katara focused on her third patient.  She swished and swirled, furrowed her brow in confusion, then relaxed.

“I can’t heal you,” she declared.

Horror gripped the Avatar’s face.  “What do you mean you can’t heal her?  You heal colds and flu all the time!  You’ve been doing it for like eighty years!  Why can’t a simple—wait, why are you smiling?”

“I can’t heal you,” Katara started again, “because you aren’t sick.”

Korra froze, then looked back at her wife as it dawned on her.  “No… it can’t be… can it?  Can Arva really…?”

“She can and she does, albeit very rarely.  Involving the Avatar can’t have hurt,” Katara explained.

“Can’t have hurt what?” Wu whispered to Mako, who was taking a moment to process the news himself.

“Oh.  I—well.  I didn’t know that was possible,” Korra said, then pulled Asami tightly against her chest.  “Do you think…?”

“I think it all makes sense now,” Asami said, awestruck.

“Whatever you ‘think,’ it’s the truth,” Katara insisted.  “The Avatar, though female, has ‘fathered’ a child thanks to spiritual intervention… a child, I might add, who is going to make a fine firebender!”

“A firebender!  Really?  That’s great!  Asami, baby, we’ve done it!”  She planted a huge kiss on Asami’s forehead.  “Forget Harmonic Convergence and opening a third spirit portal and all that… _now_ I’ve accomplished something unprecedented in the history of the Avatar!”

“That’s… not quite true,” Katara corrected her softly.  “Arva will do as she pleases, as I said.  She may have been impatient because she hasn’t been summoned much since the Air Nation fell.  But there is in fact a record of an Earth Avatar nearly three thousand years ago… he and his lover, an Air Nomad, met at Arva’s shrine in secret because of taboos against same-sex love that existed at the time.  He fell pregnant from the encounter, even though they didn’t summon the spirit intentionally.  And their son went on to build the fine marble complex that housed you while you were there.”

Wu jumped up.  “Wait wait… so you’re telling us that if Arva feels like meddling, a dude can get pregnant?”  He paused.  “Does he have to be the Avatar?”

“In theory… no, I suppose anyone with Arva’s blessing could do it.”

Mako rose behind his husband.  “Now wait, you’re not saying…?”

“I haven’t said anything,” Katara said.

“But it’s still _possible_.  And it makes sense.  If Arva felt like creating new humans for three of the elements, and there were four couples there, then it stands to reason that she would want to create life in the fourth, too.”

“Particularly if the ritual was performed well, yes.”

Mako almost choked on his own saliva.  “Wu… you really think that—?”

He and Wu uttered the next sentence in unison.  “You’re pregnant?”

“You’re the one who’s been sick!” Wu pointed out.

“That’s the flu!”

“Except _nobody_ here actually has the flu, it turns out.”

“I dunno… sympathy pains?”

“You can’t get sympathy pains from being around someone if you don’t know they’re pregnant!”

It took Mako a second to come up with a better argument.  “You… you’re the one who’s been feeling weak!”

“I’m _always_ weak!”  Wu pretended to flex a muscle that wasn’t there.  “Remember my catchphrase?”

“Well… but you’ve been cranky too…”

“Yeah.  From waking up at the crack of dawn to you yakking your guts out!”

“Mako… has it really been that bad?” Asami asked, concerned.

Mako sighed in frustration.

“Well… why are you so positive it couldn’t it be you?” Korra asked Mako.

“Because… because… I don’t know, look at Wu, and look at me… who looks more like a girl?”

Wu twirled a lock of that gorgeous brown hair around his index finger, not offended in the least.  “Yeah but if you’ll recall Arva’s shrine, you were the one who let me—”

“AAAaaaaaaaaand we’re done here!” Mako declared as he clamped a hand over Wu’s mouth before he could divulge any further details.  By the spirits, every now and then it felt like he was still Wu’s bodyguard, stopping the prince before he could embarrass them both tremendously.

Katara swirled the water in a loop above her head.  “There’s a simple way to answer that question,” she reminded them.

“Right right right, okay then,” Wu responded.  He held out his arms, presenting himself to Katara.

A moment later, Katara shook her head.  “You’re not pregnant.”

“Told ya!”  Wu stuck out his tongue childishly.

“Whatever, that… that doesn’t mean I am!” Mako retorted.  “But… fine, go ahead.”

One final time, Katara’s water ran up and down a person’s abdomen.

And, one final time, that knowing smile appeared.

“You were right.  It is an earthbender,” she told Wu.

He and Mako stared at each other, stunned.

Mako.  Wu.  A child.  A _biological_ child.  Seven years ago, Mako would have said someone was insane if they told him this was really going to happen, let alone that he’d be happy about it.

Because, to his surprise, he _was_ happy.  So was Wu.

Mako didn’t even know who initiated the kiss that followed, but he didn’t care.  He was enveloped in Wu’s embrace, having just received incredibly happy news, surrounded by people he loved (and Varrick), all of whom had received equally happy news.

His choice of life partner hadn’t excluded him from the gene pool, as he had resigned himself to accept.  In a matter of months, he and Wu and their earthbender child would become a family, a real family like he hadn’t had since he was eight years old.  He didn’t even care anymore that his morning sickness wasn’t going away any time soon, or that he’d get swollen feet, or whatever else happened to pregnant people.  This was a chance almost no gay couples would get, yet here they were, Mako and Wu, their miracle child between them as they deepened the kiss.

“Arva be praised,” he said when they stopped to breathe.

“Arva be praised!” said everyone else.

* * *

 

_Arva be praised, indeed._

“What the hell, Arva?!” Mako shouted into the void.  Whatever spirits resided in the Si Wong Desert, the odds seemed low that Arva would be among them, let alone that she would be within earshot.  That was probably all for the best as far as Mako’s safety was concerned, but a part of him felt bitter that he couldn’t let his anger out at her.

Because really, what was the point?

Why had the spirits “blessed” the couple with a miracle if they only meant to snatch it away?  Burying one’s parents at a young age was one thing, but burying one’s child was an entirely different category of cruel.

Burying _Xing Yan_ was an entirely different category of cruel.


	2. 200

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long to update. Like the previous chapter, I wrote this instead of sleeping. Ah well...

Whether by a subconscious impulse, or just dumb luck, Mako found himself standing on the edge of the crater.

He thrust fireball after fireball into it, wondering, ludicrously, if he could somehow illuminate it enough to see the bottom.  It was an impressive show, to be sure, startling a couple coyote-rats who had been prowling along the opposite perimeter.  But it wasn’t nearly enough light to find what he was looking for.  Each flame he threw dwindled to a spark, then smoke, then nothing at all.

It was just as well.  Why would Mako want to see the end of a tunnel that he never wanted to see the start of?

It was here that his sorrow began.

* * *

 

_200 days ago_

“So the badger-mole ice sculpture will be ready and delivered by noon, just in time for the lunch banquet, after which I’ve booked the Tunnel Bugs—”

Mako shook his head as he sat down next to his husband in the parlor of their mansion.  Wu’s ego may have deflated considerably since his coronation, but with any excuse for a party, he was still determined to make the biggest spectacle that he could.  He’d been that way every year for the past nineteen years, always relishing the fact that four birthdays fell on a single day.

Whether it was Arva’s intent or just a coincidence, Xing Yan had not come into the world alone.  She had been accompanied by Bolin and Opal’s daughter Deken, Korra and Asami’s son Hotaru, and Zhu Li and Varrick’s son Mikko.  As predicted, the children had each grown into strong benders of their respective elements, and under the tutelage of two pro-benders and the Avatar herself, they had been well-trained from birth.  Mako was proud of how all of them turned out.

(Of course, Xing Yan was still unquestionably the brightest.)

“Just make sure these ‘Tunnel Bugs’ don’t turn out like the platypus-bear fiasco,” Mako reminded Wu.

“Nah, the kids are way too old for animal acts,” Wu declared.

Mako frowned, puzzled.  “So why the Tunnel Bugs?”

Wu paused, then burst out laughing.  “Mako, my love, you are _way_ out of the loop.”  He draped an arm around Mako’s shoulder.  “The Tunnel Bugs are a _band_ , they’re from Omashu, they’re what all the groovy kids are listening to these days!  They’ve got ‘Tomato-Carrot Fields,’ ‘Dodecapus’ Garden,’ ‘Yellow Waterbending Submarine’…”

Mako made a face.  He’d heard that gibberish on the radio and thought it was nonsense.  But now that he thought about it, Xing Yan had mentioned the group in her last letter from Ba Sing Se University, where she had been studying for almost a year.  She’d probably very much enjoy a concert at her birthday celebration.

“Just… promise me they’ll go back to Omashu as soon as this is over,” Mako sighed.

Just then he looked up and saw Korra in the doorway.

“What, you don’t want us around or something?” she asked.  Mako couldn’t tell if that was hurt or amusement in her voice.

“Not you!  The Tunnel Bugs!  They—oh, never mind…” Mako said as Wu leapt across the floor to embrace the Avatar and her wife, who had spent the past eight months or so in Omashu, collaborating with Varrick, Zhu Li, and Bolin on some major military project.  Mako was curious as to the details, but Korra had made it clear before they had left that they would be unable to divulge anything in letters.  Mako understood; the Republic City Police had been on the alert against the Green Lotus for some time now.  What had started as a minor skirmish in Gao Ling and Chin Village now threatened much of the southern Earth Continent, with several territories already occupied.  It took the collaboration of many former Earth Kingdom troops just to keep the movement at bay.  Mako sometimes felt that the war effort undermined Wu’s decentralization of the territories, but sacrifices must be made, and if Wu was even aware of this irony, it didn’t shake his confidence that abdicating had been the right thing to do.

Asami laughed at Mako’s flustered reaction to Korra’s comment as Zhu Li and Varrick wandered in behind them, accompanied by Mikko, whom they must have met at the docks en route to Mako and Wu’s residence.  Mikko had spent the last year at the South Pole, following in Katara’s footsteps (may she rest in peace) as he studied healing from her most attentive protégés.  By all accounts, he had picked up everything almost immediately, and planned to return to Republic City to attend medical school.  Behind him were his younger sisters, a pair of nonbenders who were content to help their father tinker with his latest inventions or, given his recent absence, run Global Industries themselves.

“It’s great to see _all_ of you,” Wu stated as he gestured for the family to join the others in the parlor.  “Mako just doesn’t get the modern music scene.”

“You’re a fine one to talk!  Say… where’s Bolin?”  Mako’s brother should have been traveling with the rest of the Omashu party.  It would be a shame if he couldn’t make it; Bolin had been a phenomenal mentor to Xing Yan over the years, ever since his niece was five years old and they bonded over a quite literal game of “The Ground is Lava.”

Just then, a very unpleasant, but familiar, aroma wafted into the room from outside.

“Must be Juicy!” Korra commented, and sure enough, upon opening the window, Mako saw that the smelliest of the sky bison had landed on the front lawn, with Opal helping her husband dismount as four of their children rode air scooters down Juicy’s tail and a fifth, the sole earthbender amongst Bolin’s children, made a staircase for himself out of the soil beneath them.  Beside them, Deken jumped off of her own bison, Lightning, flipping her still-short hair that showcased her new arrow tattoos.  Deken, much like Jinora, possessed a spiritual aptitude that served the new Air Nation well, because she could relay messages long-distance via astral projection.  She and her mother, like all the airbending masters, had lately been preoccupied with the reconstruction of villages destroyed by the Green Lotus, but they were still determined to find the time to return for the annual birthday reunion.  The Air Nation was kind like that; everyone was encouraged to help, but nobody was pressed into service against their will.

If only the same could be said for—

“Any word from the United Republic Army?” Bolin asked Korra and Asami as his family came inside, and a hush fell over the room.  Being the Avatar’s son had not exempted Hotaru from the draft, nor from enlisting once his name was selected.  His mothers had been ready to fight President Shui’s new policy with everything they had after learning that their own child would be sent to the war front, but Hotaru had firmly insisted on going.  His parentage did not make him special, he reasoned, and as long as anyone was being forced into the Army, he had no right to refuse when he was called.  Besides, the Army needed more firebenders, because many had fled back to the isolationist Fire Nation as soon as Shui had issued the decree.  Even so, Korra had been pulling strings left and right in the hopes that Hotaru would be permitted a brief period of leave for the sake of the yearly tradition.

Asami looked at Korra, who nodded solemnly.  “We might as well tell them now,” Korra said.

Asami swallowed.  “Hotaru has been permanently discharged,” she began.

“Wait, why is that bad news?” Bolin asked.  “Doesn’t that mean he’s coming home?”

“He’s been injured,” Asami said, tears welling up in her eyes.  “We received the message via radio as soon as we arrived in Republic City this morning.  They couldn’t tell us much else, because the airwaves aren’t secure.  We don’t know when we’ll get to see him again.”

“How about now?” a voice called from the entryway.

All heads turned to find Hotaru at the door, accompanied by two fellow soldiers, one of whom carried his duffel bag as the other pushed—

“A… a wheelchair?” Korra breathed, and Mako knew exactly what memories were bubbling to the surface inside her mind.  She ran to her son and threw her arms around him.  “Baby… Hotaru, what happened?”

“I’m fine, Mama,” Hotaru reassured Korra.

“There was a raid,” the soldier pushing the chair said as the other followed Wu’s direction to drop Hotaru’s luggage off at the guest quarters.  “A band of metalbenders who claimed to be acting alone.  Hotaru held them off until we could send reinforcements to the arsenal, but a sharp blow to the spine with a metal disk severed some vital motor neurons.”  The soldier shook his head.  “His bending remains mostly intact, but his limited use of his arms makes it difficult to refine the way he used to.  And his legs are entirely paralyzed.”

“Which means I’ll just have to master combustion bending.  I’ve still got full use of my forehead!” Hotaru insisted.  His attempt at lightening the mood, however, just caused Korra to tear up more, and Asami knelt down beside them both, one arm on her son, the other arm on her wife.

“We’ll get through this,” she promised.  “Maybe you’ll learn to walk again, like Korra did.  But even if you don’t… I’m really, really happy to have you home,” she confessed.

Hotaru gave her a genuine smile.  “And I’m really, really happy to be here.”

Korra looked up at the soldier who had wheeled her son in.  “What did you mean, the metalbenders ‘claimed’ to be acting alone?”

The soldier sighed.  “This was the disk used to incapacitate your son,” he said, tossing it gently to the Avatar, who examined it closely.

“A pickaxe embedded in a four-pointed star,” she noted, tracing the insignia with her finger.  “Spirit Miners!”

Mako shivered.  The Green Lotus was depraved, to be certain, but the Spirit Miners were an especially horrifying faction.  They believed that any source of power could and should be harvested in the name of progress.  It was for this reason that Avatar Korra had endorsed the safe disposal of all of Kuvira’s remaining spirit vines, lest they fall into the wrong hands, but President Shui had opposed her on the grounds that the United Republic needed its own weaponry to retaliate in the event that the Green Lotus became too powerful.

“This evidence does not definitively disprove the raiders’ claim,” the soldier cautioned.  “There are many opportunistic bandits who will rob any base, be it ours or that of the Green Lotus.  They could very well have stolen their weapons from an enemy base.  But the fact that they targeted the only arsenal on our base that housed spiritual weaponry of any kind is concerning.”

“‘Concerning’?”  Korra’s eyebrows furrowed in anger.  “That ‘spiritual weaponry’ is the reason they attacked my son!  It’s why he can’t walk!”

“Honey… it’s all right…” Asami tried to reassure her.

“No, it isn’t!”  Korra stood up.  “The United Republic Army keeps leaning on those old spirit vines like they’re the perfect safety net, but lemme tell you, they won’t do a damn thing against a Crystalline Eruption if the Spirit Miners pull it off!”

“Wait wait wait, a Crystalline Eruption?” Wu asked.

Korra paused, then hung her head.  “We never told you, did we.”

“No, you didn’t,” Mako said.  “Care to enlighten us?”

“Whether I care to or not, I have to,” Korra said, but just then an engine revved outside, and Deken and Mikko each grabbed a handle of Hotaru’s wheelchair and raced out to greet their friend, Mako and Wu right on their heels.

Mako stopped in his tracks the second he saw the van.

He’d heard that they were all the rage in Ba Sing Se these days—larger than a standard Satomobile, smaller than a bus, and manufactured by, of all companies, Cabbage Corp.  To make matters worse, the Cabbagewagon that had just parked was airbrushed with a confusing pattern that must have been designed by someone intoxicated with cactus juice.

Cactus juice.  By the spirits, Xing Yan had better not have touched the stuff.

Then the metal door to the van slid open, and Mako felt all his judgment of this generation’s tastes evaporate.

His daughter was back.

“Daddy!  Papi!”

Wu and Mako ran to embrace her.  The fact that she smelled of lavender lemons or wore one of those peculiar spiral-dyed shirts that were so hip these days didn’t matter.  The girl was positively radiant, presumably relieved at having finished the semester’s exams, and now she would have a few weeks to spend with her friends and her fathers and her mentors, just like she had every year before.  All four couples and all four children from the Arva shrine were here.  Nobody was missing.

As a matter of fact, it seemed that a new person had been acquired.

“Daddy, Papi, there’s someone I want you to meet!  Remi, these are my dads!”

A tall, very dark-skinned young man climbed out of the van behind her and smiled brightly.  He wore a shirt dyed with the same colors as Xing Yan’s, albeit in a different pattern, and Mako noticed that his “boots” happened to have their soles cut out in the middle.

“Remi!  What a surprise!”  Wu was not the least bit shy about throwing his arms around the man as though they were already family.  “A college sweetheart.  Hope Xing Yan isn’t keeping you too distracted from your own studies!”  He cast his daughter a playful look.

Xing Yan laughed.  “Actually, Papi, I didn’t meet Remi at university.  Korra sent him to Ba Sing Se so he could teach me sandbending.  Check it out!”  With a simple flick of her wrist, she summoned a steady stream of particles from the edge of a nearby koi pond and cast the grains into a series of orbitals around her head, then neatly dropped it into the spire of a sandcastle at her feet.

“That is so cool!” Wu applauded.

Remi smiled.  “It’s an old trick.  I grew up in the Si Wong Desert.”

“So you’re from a commune?” Mako deduced.

“It’s where my family has lived for the last ten generations.  I am the first to leave,” Remi explained.  “It was well worth the trip.”  With that, he turned and shamelessly planted a long, deep kiss on Xing Yan’s lips.

“All right, all right.”  Mako stared awkwardly at his toes.  “So Korra set you up?”

“Don’t be a prude, Mako!” Korra laughed as she fake-punched his shoulder from behind.  “I thought he and Xing Yan could learn a lot from each other, since they’re both strong earthbenders, and it looks like I was right.  How’d the lavabending lessons go?”

Proudly, Remi lifted a few pieces of gravel and spun them until they melted before everyone’s eyes.  “I seem to be getting the hang of it.  I’ll be ready in time to launch Project Core!”

“Perfect, because we just finished putting the final touches on the drill yesterday!” Korra told him.

Xing Yan threw her arms around Remi and squeezed him tightly.  “The next few months are going to be _amazing_!”

“Hold it!”  Mako held up a hand.  “What’s happening in ‘the next few months’?”

 

“Absolutely not!”

It was hours later.  Everyone had just finished dinner, and those who had known about the mission—namely, everyone except for Mako, Wu, and Hotaru—cast awkward glances at those who had been uninformed as Korra attempted, once more, to make her case.

“The Green Lotus will stop at nothing to acquire more firepower.  It’s in everyone’s best interests to block them before they get the upper hand!”

“You’re talking about drilling a massive hole to the _center of the freaking earth_ , in a ship that took less than a year to design and has never been thoroughly tested, to pick up extremely volatile crystals that were locked away before even _Vaatu_ roamed the planet, and taking my daughter, my _only_ daughter, with you!  You’re… ‘crazy’ doesn’t even begin to cover it!”  Mako crossed his arms and slumped into his seat.

“We’re running out of time!” Korra insisted.  “I wish there were more time to refine our approach, but there just isn’t!  If we don’t retrieve the crystals before the Spirit Miners get there, we’ve lost this war, we’ve lost the Earth States, and in all likelihood, we’ve lost the world itself!”  Korra rubbed her temples.  “The Green Lotus severely overestimates their ability to control spiritual energy.  They think they can manage a Crystalline Eruption and harness its power, but you saw what happened when Kuvira tried running the place with spirit vines, and spirit vines aren’t nearly as strong!”

“By all available sources, it’s safe to assume that spirit vines harbor an extremely diluted form of the energy that fuels the crystals,” Varrick added.  “And our inside sources suggest that the Green Lotus is working on a similar plan to extract them from the earth’s core.  We have to pull them out first!”

“And if the Green Lotus gets their hands on these crystals _after_ you’ve pulled them out?” Mako challenged.  “You’ll have done all the hard work for them!”

“Not with the latest in Future Industries innovations,” Asami explained.  “Those crystals won’t see the surface for more than a day, tops.  They’ll be launched far, far away into space, where if they detonate, they won’t be able to harm anyone.”

“But you said so yourself… this mission will take _months_.  That’s a lot of time for something to go wrong!”

“Yes, but if we maintain core-like conditions, which our ship is designed to do in the posterior chamber, then we are at no greater risk of a Crystalline Eruption than we’d be if the stones stayed at the center of the earth.”  Asami sipped her tea.  “Trust me, I was terrified too when Korra filled me in, but we have to do this.”

“But you don’t have to drag my daughter into it!” Mako said stubbornly.

Korra swallowed.  “Mako, I wouldn’t have asked if there was any other way.  But we need the best earthbenders we can find for this mission.  We need sandbenders at the point of entry.  We’ve run all the numbers, and the Si Wong Desert is by far the best route we can take.  Then we need lavabenders after we reach the mantle.  Then probably metalbenders as we reach the denser minerals of the outer core.  And all along, we’ll need seismic sense in order to detect enemy interference.”  She sighed.  “Mako… out of all the earthbenders we know, how many can do all of the above?”

Xing Yan lifted a scone to her lips and avoided eye contact.

Mako hated the fact that Korra was right.

“I’m not the only one, though,” Xing Yan said hurriedly.  “I mean, I’m going, I’m definitely going, but there will be other earthbenders with me.  Korra, Bolin, and Remi can all cover for me when I need extra help.”

“Sweetheart… are you sure you want to go?” Wu asked gently, no trace of judgment in his voice.

Xing Yan nodded.

“She’s an adult, honey,” Wu said as he turned to Mako, his own eyes crusted with tears.  “Even if we oppose her with everything we have, we have no right to stop her from making her choice.”

Mako hated even more the fact that Wu was right.

“So Xing Yan… you and Remi are going to be traveling… together?”

“Well, don’t forget the rest of us!” Deken piped up, and everyone turned to look at her.

“You’re not an earthbender!” Mako protested.  It bugged him that Bolin, Deken’s own father, seemed unbothered by this arrangement.  Of course, he had probably known about the whole thing for months.

“I need her for communication!” Korra explained.  “She and Jinora will be our ground support.  Deken will stay on the ship and use her spiritual projection to send out a distress signal if anything goes wrong… which it _won’t_ … and Jinora will likewise project to us if she becomes aware of anything amiss on the surface.  Meanwhile… meanwhile, Mikko will accompany us to provide necessary medical services.”

At the far end of the table, Varrick squeezed Zhu Li’s hand.  Clearly, they didn’t like this any better than Mako did, but like Bolin, they seemed to have made peace with the idea long ago.

Well, Mako didn’t have to sit idly by just because the others had given up.

“And what about Hotaru?” he asked flippantly.

“What _about_ Hotaru?”  Korra seemed genuinely confused.

“What’s his role?”

Asami looked like she’d been slapped in the face.

“What is your son going to do while the rest of us sacrifice our children to your draft, Madame President?”  Mako felt the heat, literal and figurative, rise inside his chest.

“How _dare_ you!” Korra reprimanded through gritted teeth.

“Mama, forget it!” Hotaru said.

“Forget it?  He just compared me to President Shui!  As if you haven’t been through more than your share of sacrifice already!”

“Mama, this is what I was trying to make you understand all along!”  Hotaru grabbed the edge of the table and pulled himself up to look as though he were standing, even though his arms were doing all the work.  “It’s not that I wanted to lose my legs fighting a war I never signed up for.  It’s that the war needed me!  Do you really think that Deken, Mikko, Xing Yan, or Remi want to give up their lives for the next few months just for the hell of it?  They don’t want to go any more than their parents want them to go.  But this isn’t about what we want!  This is about what the world needs!  The Avatar, of all people, should understand that!”

Korra froze, eyes as wide as those of a catdeer standing in the headlights of a Satomobile.

“If I was any good on Project Core, at all, I’d be coming along in a heartbeat,” Hotaru said as he collapsed back into his wheelchair.  “But I’m not.  And you’re glad I’m not, and you know it, and it’s not fair to me or Mako or Xing Yan or anyone else, but it’s just the way things turned out.  So just… count your blessings, I guess, but don’t pretend it doesn’t suck for everyone else.”

“You’re right,” Korra sighed.  “It’s not fair.  This mission isn’t safe, and I don’t want any of us to have to go.  But there’s just no other way.”

“I… I get it,” Mako confessed.  “I hate it, but I get it.”

“Just do your best to keep my friends safe, please, Mama?” Hotaru begged.

“With my life,” Korra swore.  She turned to Mako and Wu, to Bolin and Opal, to Varrick and Zhu Li.  “I promise all of you, I will protect your children, the heroes Arva gave us all, as though they were my own.  Because in a way, they are.”

Mako threw his arms around Xing Yan.

“Hold her to that promise, all right?” he whispered into her ear.

* * *

 

The tunnel stretched all the way to the earth’s core.

Or did it?  If it took sandbending, lavabending, and metalbending all working together to open it, had they closed behind the ship as it slipped through?

What would happen if someone were to jump into that hole?  Would they hover at the center of the earth forever, tugged in every direction by the planet’s gravity?  Or would they just die?

Mako thrust one final, angry fireball into the well and watched it fall, suffocating from the lack of fuel or air or maybe both, its promise of ravenous blazes evaporating with the dark wind of reality.

He turned away and kept running.


	3. 2

He felt the rage boil the very blood in his arms, and wished desperately for something to hit, but there was nothing.

Instead, he launched the flames away from him, as useless in the barren desert as they had been in the tunnel.  Finally, he felt the frustration condense so tightly that it formed a lightning bolt, which left some kind of mark in the sand.

For a fraction of a second, Mako felt satisfaction that his anger had finally left a trace behind it, that he wasn’t just firing into the void.  But that satisfaction disappeared as soon as the spot had cooled off.  So he zapped the sand again.

And again.

He was still running, and he didn’t feel like he had it in him to stop long enough to investigate what exactly were the marks he was leaving in his wake.  He ran, built up a charge, released it.  Run, charge, release.  It was the only way to even kind of let out the lightning storm inside him.

Odd to think how recently he’d been at peace.

* * *

 

_2 hours ago_

_The flames danced merrily around Mako as he strolled through the courtyard of the Fire Lord’s palace._

_Some draped leisurely like willow fronds, others radiated from round centers like flower petals, still more fluttered back and forth like butterflies._

_It was a garden, a beautiful garden, composed entirely of fire._

_Wu was waiting for him on a bench at the center, staring into a fountain of lava._

_“Watch this,” he said, and wriggled his fingers as sparks rained down.  When had Wu learned how to firebend?_

_A tiny turtle duckling formed at the spot where Wu’s sparks had landed in the fountain._

_The turtle duckling flapped her little wings, and beautiful gems arose around her, in every color imaginable._

_“How is she doing that?” Mako marveled._

_“She’s from lava, silly.  That makes her an earthbender,” Wu explained._

_Just then, something welled up around the chick, a current of green in the fountain._

_Suddenly, all of the brilliant oranges and reds and pinks and yellows were engulfed by the green—not the lush green of a regular garden, but a sickening, toxic green like bile or phlegm or algae._

_“Wu?  What’s going on?”_

_Wu didn’t answer._

_“Wu!”_

_The green lava rose out of the fountain, wrapping its tendrils around Wu, Mako, and the duckling.  The duckling squawked in protest, then in fearful desperation, as she was pulled into the depths by the green lava._

_“No!  Turtle duck!”_

_Then the lava came for the prince._

_“Stop!  Wu, can you hear me?  Wu, are you safe?”_

“Wu… Wu, say something to me…”

“Um, Mako?  I’m right here.”

Mako’s eyes bolted open.

Of course.  Wu was in bed with him, safe and sound.  There was no green fire, and the turtle duck wasn’t in danger because the turtle duck didn’t exist.

He looked around the room to get his bearings.  Right.  They were in the master bedroom of their vacation house.  It was smaller than their suite in the mansion in Republic City, and the decorations were a little gaudy, but for the past ten years, it had marked many pleasant memories of holidays with their little girl.  Mako had initially been skeptical at Wu’s desire for a summer home in the desert, but aside from Misty Palms having its charms, it now felt reassuring that they could stay so close to where Project Core had launched.  Soon the ship would return, and they would once again hold Xing Yan in their arms.

“Sorry…” Mako mumbled.  “Just a really weird dream… just remind me, you can’t firebend, can you?”

Wu stretched out his arm in an exaggerated parody of Mako’s bending style.  “Nope, looks like I can’t.  Are you okay, honey?”

“Yeah, I’m… I’m fine.”

That was when they heard it—the groaning of a distressed bison downstairs in the stable.

“Robbers!” Mako yelped.  “Someone’s breaking in!”

“Easy, now, we don’t know that,” Wu assured him, although he looked nervous too.

“I have to go check!” Mako insisted.

Wu smiled wryly.  “My big tough guy,” he muttered.  “If it makes you feel better, go ahead.”

Mako slipped on the spiral staircase and broke into a roll that landed him in the middle of the kitchen.  Spirits, vacation houses always had weird layouts.  After a decade of ownership, Mako still wasn’t used to this one.  He backtracked to the dining room, where the head of a different stairwell opened up to lead to barn.

He heard another grunt.  Lightning.  It was just Deken’s bison, whom they had agreed to watch while her owner was away on the mission.  Being in close proximity made it easier for Deken to visit via spiritual projection.

In fact, Deken’s spirit was here now, floating—

Not floating.

“Deken!”

The girl dropped the tool she was using to pick the lock on Lightning’s stall.  Lightning was pacing nervously, anxious to see her rider again.  When the lock pick fell to the cement floor with a sharp clatter, both Deken and her bison jumped and turned to face Mako.

“Deken, you’re back?  You’re all back already?”  Mako could feel his whole face illuminate with joy; at last, some good news.  “Deken, why didn’t you just knock?  Or use Xing Yan’s key?  Come to think of it, where is—?”

Deken collapsed to the ground, shaking.

“Deken?”

“I… I’m sorry, Mako, I’m so sorry, it wasn’t supposed to happen like this!”

“Like what?”

“Like this!” she said again, as if that clarified anything.  “I just came to get my bison, Mikko was supposed to tell you, he’s so much better with this kind of stuff.”

Mako seized Deken by the arm.  “With what kind of stuff?  What the hell happened?  Where’s my daughter?”

“We… we were ambushed,” Deken sniffed.  “We had them, Mako, we had the crystals, when the Spirit Miners showed up!”  She held up an arm that was scorched all the way up to the shoulder.  “The drill exploded, and with it, two of the escape pods.”  She swallowed.  “Korra… Korra insisted that Mikko and Xing Yan and I take the only good one.  They’re two-seaters but we squeezed in.  She said that they would fend off the spirit miners as long as they could, her and Remi and… and my dad!”

“So Korra is…?  And Bolin?”  Mako’s best friend, and his brother.  Stranded at the center of the earth, left to fight until they perished at the hands of the Green Lotus.

No, he couldn’t let himself think about that.  He just couldn’t.  He had to focus on what had gone right tonight, whatever it was.

“But… but you three got out!  So just tell me, where is Xing Yan?”

Deken was sobbing now.  “Uncle Mako, I… Mikko tried, okay?  He tried his damned hardest.  But in Xing Yan’s condition, dealing with injuries like hers—”  Deken choked and couldn’t say another word.

Before Mako could stop himself, he had Deken pinned to the wall.  “Spit it out already!  Korra said she’d keep her safe!  She said she’d keep all of you safe!  And if Xing Yan isn’t safe, then why… why did you even come here?”

“Mako!  The hell are you doing?”

Wu was standing at the top of the stairs, petrified in alarm.

Mako reflexively released Deken from his grip at the sight of his husband.  Wu ran down and stood between them.

“Mako?”  Wu’s voice was now soft and gentle as he roped Mako into a hug.  “Mako, whatever’s going on—”

“Xing Yan is dead.”  Mako hadn’t been able to bring himself to believe the words until he said them aloud.  “Our little girl is gone.”

Deken’s eyes were closed, but tears still streamed down her cheeks as she nodded affirmatively.

At this, Wu too started bawling.  Waterworks had always been a thing with Wu, but never before had Mako felt so synchronized with Wu’s crying.  It felt like for every tear Wu released, another one just like it was ripped from Mako’s own eyes.

No, dammit.

He couldn’t do this.

“Get out of here, Deken!” Mako roared, and smoke billowed out of his nostrils.

“Mako, it’s not her fault!”

“Please, Uncle Mako,” Deken begged.  “I just need to get Lightning.  Then I need to get to Ba Sing Se.  If the Spirit Miners win—”

“Who bloody cares anymore!”  Mako threw a fireball to the ground in anguish, scaring Lightning and causing even Deken and Wu to flinch.

“There’s a plant!” Deken cried.  “A receptacle where they planned to channel all the energy from the crystals.  If they induce an eruption, it almost certainly won’t be able to contain the spill.  Which for all we know, might have been the Green Lotus’ plan all along.  We need all the airbenders we can get together to create a vortex to contain the explosion so nobody in the city gets hurt.  The others are headed over already.  I have to go with them.”  Deken crossed her arms over her chest.  “I have to see my mom.”

Opal.

Of course she didn’t know about Bolin yet.  Was Deken planning to tell her in person?  Before or after they had ensured the safety of Ba Sing Se?  Would Deken deliver the message more diplomatically than she had delivered it to Mako?

If she did, would it hurt any less?

Mako yanked the key from his key ring and threw it at Deken, who winced as the metal was hot from its brief stay in Mako’s palms.  “Take your beast and go!”

“But there’s—”

“Now!” Mako insisted, but instead of giving her a chance to comply, he followed his own command.

He started running before his rage could burn the house—no, the entire oasis—to the ground.

* * *

 

Run.  Charge.  Release.

Run.  Charge.  Release.

He’d found a rhythm that made sense, as much as anything made sense in this world anymore.

Run… charge… release….

Too bad he couldn’t keep it up.

He collapsed into a nearby dune, face down.  What were a few grains of sand in his trachea compared to the literal weight of the world crushing a person out of existence?

Apparently, they could still burn a person’s windpipe ferociously.  That definitely wasn’t his own fire burning in his lungs.

He was nearly out of fire.

He was exhausted, but too angry to sleep.  He was famished, but even if there had been food available, his mouth was too bitter to accept a single bite.  Without his fire, he was even cold, but the numbness was starting to feel welcome, an escape into the void.

Had there been a cactus nearby, Mako would have gladly guzzled the juice until he passed out.

He rolled over and stared up at the stars.  A meteorite flickered for half a second, and Mako vaguely wondered if that was what the crystalline eruption would’ve looked like if it had been launched into space as planned.

By now he was too tired to even cry.  The world was quiet and still.  For a brief moment, Mako could pretend that this emptiness was all there was to the world.  There was nobody to miss because there was nobody at all.

And yet through the soulless night air, a voice still called out.

“Mako?  Mako!”

Mako didn’t want to see anyone, ever again, but if he did want someone, anyone, it would be—

“Over here, Wu!”  Mako didn’t know if he was actually yelling, or if it just felt like yelling because of all the energy it took.

Either way, ten seconds later, his head was in Prince Wu’s lap, gasping sobs that were completely devoid of tears.


	4. New Beginnings

When Mako finally caught his breath long enough to say anything, he realized he had no idea what to say.

He could apologize for running out on Wu like that.

He could ask Wu how he found him.

He could offer to carry Wu back to the house, however many miles away that was.

But what tumbled out of his mouth was, “I carried her, Wu.”

Wu nodded.

“It was the weirdest thing I ever did, weirder than when I used to supervise you in the bathroom, but she was literally a part of me for nine months.”

“I know.”  Wu ran his fingers through Mako’s hair.  “I can’t imagine what this feels like for you.”

Mako felt horrible.  Of course, he and Wu were dealing with the same grief.  After everything the family had been through over the past two decades, after being married to the most sensitive man on the planet for so many years, Mako should have been the one comforting Wu.  Wu wasn’t supposed to be the strong one.  Wu was soft, vulnerable.

And yet, it was that same vulnerability that made Xing Yan always turn to her Papi whenever she was sad.  School trouble, boy problems, any kind of fear, Wu had always held her and wept right alongside her until she felt better.

As always, in his softness, Wu was strong.

Mako sat up and inhaled.  “Thank you for finding me, Wu.”

“It was easy.  You left a trail.”  Wu held up a glass shard, a long, skinny one covered in grains of sand.  “Fulgurite.  You zapped the desert, didn’t you.”

Mako nodded sheepishly.

“Listen.  I’d love to stay out here for as long as you needed.  But we really can’t.  You ran out before Mikko arrived to tell us everything.”

“Deken told us more than we wanted to know.”

“So you’d rather not have ever found out what happened?” Wu asked skeptically.

“Deken told us more than we wanted to be true,” Mako amended as he stood up.

“But she still didn’t tell us _everything_.”  Wu turned, and in the dark Mako could make out some kind of bundle strapped to his back.  It didn’t look big enough to hold much food or water.

“If it’s about the Spirit Miners winning or the Green Lotus taking over now that we don’t have the Avatar anymore, I don’t want to hear it.  I can’t right now.”  If it was about Korra dying in the Avatar State, he _really_ couldn’t think about what that would mean.  But the survivors of Project Core would have no way of knowing that if it were true, would they?

Wu shuffled his feet a little bit as he redirected the couple into some trajectory that would most likely lead back to Misty Palms.  “That wasn’t what Mikko had to tell us, actually.  Deken and Jinora have spread word of what happened to the Air Nation, who told the United Republic Army, who in turn informed the Fire Nation and the Water Tribes and every state on the Earth Continent.  By now the whole world is on alert.  And I’m _not_ the Earth King.  Whatever war’s coming, it’s not really our problem right now.”

“So what _is_?” Mako asked, exasperated.

“It’s not exactly a _problem_.”

That was when Mako heard it—crying.  But not from him, and not from Wu.

Wu rotated his bundle to his front and removed a hood, revealing the tiniest of faces.

“Shh, Yefeng, you’re all right.  We found your Granddad.”                          

 

Mako’s head spun wildly, and he had to stop and sit down again.

“Say what, now?”

Wu sighed.  “We really do need to keep going.  I’ve only brought so much formula for Yefeng.”

Reluctantly, Mako stood up but did not move.  “I’m not a ‘Granddad.’  We only have… had… one child, and she never had any children.”

“She had this one.”  Wu set off again, forcing Mako to catch up.

“So when?  How?  Hold on…”  Mako did the math in his head.  “So Xing Yan was already pregnant when the mission started?”

“Yes.”

“And she would’ve been far enough to know it!  Why’d she still go?”

“The fate of the world was at stake!”

“I don’t care!  Did… did Korra know?”  Mako found his flames again, and had to squeeze his fist tightly to keep them from materializing.  “Did Korra _care_?”

“How the hell would any of us know?” Wu snapped back.

“Well, what about Mikko?  He’s the damn medic!”

“Yes, and he delivered Yefeng almost immediately after they had arrived safely on the surface.  A little premature, but Xing Yan wasn’t going to make it.  She… she died before Yefeng ever opened his eyes.”  Wu choked on those last words.

It seemed like a stupid question to ask, but Mako had to know.  “So how did she name him, then?”

“She and Remi spent months on the ship with nothing to do but think up names.  Everyone on board knew they had their hearts set on Yefeng.  It means ‘light phoenix.’”

Mako laughed hollowly.  “Oh right, that Remi kid was the father.”

“Naturally.”  Wu bounced Yefeng lightly.  “And he would’ve made a fine father, if—”

“If he hadn’t been smothered in the center of the world!”  Mako crossed his arms over his chest.  “Did Korra even think about that when she sentenced Remi to his doom?”

“Korra had a promise to keep, and she bloody kept it!  When only three people could be saved, she chose Xing Yan, Deken, and Mikko.  Mako, why are you so dead-set intent on blaming Korra when you just lost her?”

“Because she was the Avatar!  Because we were _Team_ Avatar!  And thanks to her plan, which didn’t even work, half of Team Avatar is dead, the world is in chaos, and there’s no one to restore balance!  Now the White Lotus has to somehow find and train the next Avatar, all while avoiding the Green Lotus, and this could take decades because the Earth Kingdom is so damn big!”

Wu exhaled.  “Mako… it might not be like that.  There’s… there’s more to all this.”

“More?  Are you kidding me?”

Wu’s next question seemed to be a complete non-sequiter.  “Listen, Mako, we need to know.  Do you have _any_ Water Tribe, any at all, in your bloodline?”

 

Mako couldn’t even articulate his answer for a full minute afterward.

“I… no!  Definitely not!  But what does that have to do with _anything_?”

“Because I sure don’t!  And Remi certainly didn’t!”

“So what?”

“So Yefeng is seven-eighths Earth Kingdom and one-eighth Fire Nation.  No Water Tribe ancestry anywhere.”  Wu clutched the baby more tightly and quickened his pace.

“Why does that matter?”

“It matters,” Wu said softly, “because Yefeng is a waterbender.”

“What happened, did he start hurling ice cubes at you or something?”

“Mako… I’m serious.”

“How would you even know?  He’s a newborn!”

“Mikko told me!  Look, he’s not nearly as good as Katara, but he’s still confident that he can at least recognize a fellow waterbender’s aura when he feels it.  And he did feel it… the moment Yefeng was born.”  Wu moved to shift the child’s weight to his back again, and Mako realized that he was starting to tire from carrying the kid around.  Who knew how long the ex-prince had spent hauling around a baby and looking for his husband at the same time?

Mako picked up Yefeng and clutched him to his chest as he had done so many times with Xing Yan.  “So then what, Remi isn’t the father?”  Had Xing Yan gotten caught up in the “free love” trend kids were into these days?

“No, from what Mikko told me, I think it’s a pretty safe bet that Remi is this kid’s dad.  Plus, Mikko had plenty of time to sense Yefeng’s waterbending aura while everyone was crammed together in that ship, just like Katara could tell Xing Yan was an earthbender from the moment we found out we were having her.  But he _didn’t_.  Not until Yefeng was born, and suddenly the waterbending aura was overwhelmingly strong.”

Mako looked down at the child in his arms, as if doing so would somehow enable him to sense the same aura.  Of course he couldn’t, but there was definitely a part of Xing Yan in there; the boy felt eerily familiar, as though Mako had known him a long time.

“And according to Mikko,” Wu continued, “there was a limited supply of oxygen left in the ship when they escaped, since the hull had been breached.  Even if Deken had stayed, she wouldn’t have been able to bend it back in without drawing toxic gas in as well.  So the clock was ticking on the rest of the team from the moment the escape pod left, and Mikko calculated how long they had.”

Mako felt sick to his stomach at reducing the fates of Korra, Bolin, and Remi to a math equation.  But Wu still wasn’t finished.

“Assuming they gave it everything they had and fought right up to the end, assuming that they didn’t die at the hands of the enemy themselves… Korra’s time of death would have coincided with Yefeng’s time of birth.”

“You aren’t saying what I think you’re saying,” Mako insisted.

“Yeah, Mako, I am!”  Wu’s voice had a firm edge to it, one that would have served him very well had he accepted the kingship.  “Our grandson is an Earth Kingdom national.  Our grandson was born at the exact moment the Water Avatar died.  And our grandson is a waterbender.  Mako, somehow or other… I have every reason to suspect that Yefeng is the new Earth Avatar.”

 

Mako handed Yefeng back to Wu before the palms of his hands could scorch the poor child.

He threw one more lightning bolt to the ground, leaving the biggest fulgurite yet stretching a good ten or so yards in front of them.  The resounding _crack_ woke up Yefeng, who started bawling.

“Mako, really?” Wu asked, exasperated as he shifted to his right to bypass the slippery patch in the sand.

“Yes, really!  This is messed up!”

“Come on, Yefeng being the Avatar is the _least_ messed-up thing about all this!”

“And the fact that you can say that is the most messed-up thing!”

“It’s not messed-up to be the grandparents of the Avatar!  It’s an honor, a huge honor, one like I never expected to have ever since I abdicated!”

Mako scoffed.  “And of course now it’s about you!”

“It’s not, of course it’s not, we’re in this together!  You, me, and Avatar Yefeng!”

“Please don’t say that!”

“What, ‘Avatar Yefeng’?”

“Yeah, that!  We can’t prove he’s even the Avatar.”

Wu cast Mako a sideways glare.  “For decades, Mako, you’ve always chastised me for not living in reality.  And most of the time, fine, I deserved it.  But you’re not allowed to ignore reality either just because it doesn’t suit you.  And… why doesn’t it suit you, anyway?”

Instead of answering, Mako took off running again, as if he could outpace the confusion that gripped him right then.

As it was, he couldn’t even outpace Wu; he was that worn out.

“Well?” Wu challenged.

“The Avatar killed our daughter!” Mako yelled.  He braced himself for Wu to correct him, but he didn’t, so Mako kept going.  “Without Korra, Xing Yan would still be alive.”  Again, Wu refrained from pointing out the obvious—that Korra’s presence at Arva’s shrine was likely the reason Xing Yan had ever existed to begin with.  “Her plan failed, and Xing Yan is gone, and Bolin is gone, and… and Korra’s gone.”

Wu clasped Mako’s sizzling hand, unfazed by the heat.  “You’re angry with her.  But you still love her.”

“If Korra had lived, I don’t think I’d talk to her again for the rest of my life.”

“Maybe, maybe not.  But you would still love her.  And now that she’s back… in a way… you don’t know what to say,” Wu said thoughtfully.  “Yefeng is all you have left of your best friend, and you don’t know if you want to hold him or throw him off a cliff.”

Mako shook his head.  “I was done, Wu.  I was done with all this Avatar stuff.  Spirits, I wasn’t even really thinking about it in the desert, but I guess I figured with Korra gone, nothing to do with spirits or rebellions or terrorists or wars or saving the world was our problem anymore.  Like maybe it really was just supposed to be you and me from now on.  But apparently I just can’t get away from Team Avatar no matter which way I turn.  This is going to be the rest of our lives, just like it was for Tonraq and Senna.  We’ll never be done.”

“I guess not.”  Wu shivered just a tiny bit.  “But then again… neither was Korra.  I’m lucky.  I had the option of walking out on being Earth King, and I took it, and I still think it was the second-best choice of my life.”

“Second?”

“After marrying you, duh!  Anyway, it’s nice to have options for your future.  But Korra never had them.  You can’t abdicate from being the Avatar.  She had to stick with it till it killed her, just like almost every other Avatar died in the line of duty.”  Wu’s eyes were running.  “Trust me, that’s not the fate I want for Yefeng.  I don’t want it to be true, any more so than you.  But if Yefeng is the Avatar, then he’s the Avatar whether we want him to be or not.  And if he has to be the Avatar, I want to make sure we’re there for him every step of the way.  Raising the Avatar… it’s gonna be hard, but it can’t be any harder than actually _being_ the Avatar.”

“You’re… you’re right, dammit.”  Mako swallowed.  “This is going to uproot everything.  I don’t know if the White Lotus can deal with this right now.”

“Then don’t tell them,” came a voice from behind them.

The men turned to see the blue, projected spirit of Avatar Korra standing right behind them.

 

Wu jumped about thirty feet in the air, earning a disapproving glare from Korra.

“That’s my new body, don’t break it the first day!” she demanded, pointing at Yefeng, who was still in Wu’s arms.  “Mako, maybe you should hold him for a while.”

Mako complied.  “Korra… how are you doing that?”

“I’m not doing it at all, actually.  I’m here because Yefeng called me.”

“Yefeng… called you?”

Korra shrugged.  “I doubt it was conscious.  I think maybe he just felt a little scared, or lonely, the way babies do sometimes.”

“But how come we can see you?”

“Beats me.  It might be because the spirit portals are open, or because of the Crystalline Eruption, or because I’m the only Avatar Yefeng has to remember since our other lives got cut off, or maybe just because he’s more spiritual than I ever was.  I just don’t know.”

“So how long have you been standing there?”  Mako suddenly felt worried about what she might have heard about him being mad or blaming her, because if she asked, he still couldn’t deny what he felt.

“I just got here.  But it’s… it’s okay.  I know you’re all probably still in shock over everything, or you wouldn’t be standing out in the desert.”

“Well, to our credit, we are on our way back to civilization,” Wu offered, resuming the hike.  Mako did likewise, and Korra’s ghostly form followed him readily, as if she were tethered to Yefeng by an invisible rope.

“Listen… there aren’t enough words to tell you how sorry I am,” Korra began.

“There isn’t enough sorry you can be to make it up to us,” Mako said curtly.

“Mako!” Wu gasped.

“No no, he’s right.  I could give you the play-by-play of what happened tonight, but I don’t think that would make you forgive me.  It shouldn’t, anyway.”  Somehow, her validation of Mako’s wrath actually did dull it just a tiny bit.  “We did stop the Crystalline Eruption from making it to the surface, if it’s any consolation, so nobody really died in vain, but it’s only a matter of time before they try it again.  Luckily, with Deken, Jinora, and Mikko spreading the alert, it’ll be harder next time.  But I’m not the Avatar anymore, so I can’t restore balance.  Not now.”

“And you think Yefeng can?”

“Eventually?  Of course.  But I stand by what I said—don’t tell the White Lotus you have him.  At least not yet.  Maybe when he’s sixteen you can reverse tradition and have him tell them himself.”

“Why the wait?”

Korra sighed.  “Because as much as I love the White Lotus, there are some things they get wrong.  They weren’t able to stop the Red Lotus or the Green Lotus from breaking away and causing trouble.  And even though their approach to training me earned me the skills I needed from an early age, I was sheltered.  I didn’t see the world for what it was until I came to Republic City, and even then I had a lot to learn.  Yefeng doesn’t need the White Lotus.  He needs parents.  Or… grandparents, as the case may be.”  She looked down.  “And as great as Remi and Xing Yan were…”

“You can’t bring them back,” Mako said.

“Maybe I was wrong to drag them into this fight.  Or maybe they died saving the world.  But none of that is Yefeng’s fault.  You should be proud of him, and proud of your daughter.”

“We are,” Mako affirmed.

“I… I think Yefeng is falling asleep,” Korra said as her form grew more translucent.  “I don’t know if he’s ever going to call me back like this or not.  But… it was really great seeing you, one last time.”

“We’ll miss you,” Mako said, and found that he meant every word.

Wu just burst into tears.

“Good luck…” Korra said as she drifted off.

Mako kissed Yefeng’s forehead and repeated in a low whisper, “Good luck.”

 

It took some time after that before Mako and Wu spoke, but finally, the firebender just couldn’t hold the words in any longer.

“Thank you, Wu,” he said.

“Well, I wasn’t just going to let you stay lost!  Without you, who’d check the closet for monsters?”

“Not just for finding me.  I mean, I probably would’ve found my way back on my own, eventually.  But thank you for showing me that I still have reasons to go back at all.”

“Aw, most of that was Korra…”

“No.  It was you.  You introduced me to my grandson, who reunited me with my friend one last time.  But even if Yefeng didn’t exist… you still would have found me.  And you would still be a good enough reason to return.”  He placed an arm around Wu’s shoulder.  “I’m… I’m sorry I left you behind in the barn.”

“Well… you’ve rescued me enough times to make up for it,” Wu said casually, but the prince was glowing, and Mako knew that his husband was relieved beyond words.

That was when the silhouette of the Misty Palms Oasis appeared on the horizon, illuminated by the first pink bands of breaking dawn.

“Don’t worry, Yefeng,” Mako told the boy sleeping softly in his arms.  “We’ll all be home soon.”


End file.
